


Either led or driven

by sunspeared



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Haven (Dragon Age), In Your Heart Shall Burn, Significant Handkerchiefs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-06-04 09:24:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6652243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunspeared/pseuds/sunspeared
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Josephine makes herself comfortable (or not) at Haven, attempts to balance her fellow advisors' <i>issues</i> and assert her place in the Inquisition, and resists one very, very charming mercenary. Mostly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The three-fold world divided

**Author's Note:**

> After I dashed off "A tried and valiant soldier" for my TL, I promised them that either Josie or Ser Barris was next. I like Josie the most, so I dashed off about 1400 words, which became... this. It diverges from "soldier" at the moment where Cass hits Krem in the face. (In "soldier," Josie goes back in the tent and doesn't think about it.) Also, s/o to serenity-fails for [this fanart,](http://serenity-fails.tumblr.com/post/140363471401/februarys-patreon-backers-cast-their-votes-and) which probably prompted the rewritening.

It is a professional advantage, rather than an annoyance, to be thought of as an Antivan first and a politician second. The moment they look at her silks and jewels and write her off as vain and flighty, more interested in wine and tall ships than in matters of real consequence, she has them precisely where she wants them; and this rule has held true for the better part of her career.

Until Haven.

In Haven, there are no nationalities. Rather than a force to be reckoned with, she is a _frail diplomat_ who cannot possibly understand the ways of warriors. Soldiers clamor to escort her, and will not answer a single one of her questions. The town is full of mercenary companies looking to sign on with the Inquisition, whose representatives will not take her seriously unless she has Leliana or Commander Cullen standing behind her chair, glaring them down.

On a day where Leliana and the Commander are both otherwise occupied—and Seeker Pentaghast being out of the question for her purposes—it is with great trepidation that she receives Lieutenant Cremisius Aclassi, lately of Minrathous, second-in-command to the Iron Bull, captain of the Bull's Chargers.

Aclassi is younger than her. That much, she can be sure of. His armor gleams in the torchlight, never mind the dents and scratches in the breastplate. The leather of his many, many belts is fine, and well-tended; his hair is immaculately shaven up the sides. This much, at least, Josephine can approve of.

And his tone is respectful, as he lays out the virtues of his captain and his company. His smile, when he offers it, is shy. A novelty. Josephine is no great beauty, from a family that never produced great beauties. Noses too long, foreheads too broad. Convenient, that everyone in Orlais went masked.

 _Stop it, Josie_ , Leliana would be saying. _Those who cannot find fault with your reputation or your talents must look to your face. You are perfection itself_.

"You need experienced soldiers," Aclassi concludes, "and the Chargers are the best there are."

"Your prices," Josephine says, looking over the contract and rider on her desk, and wrinkling her nose—more at the stink of the dissection table in the corner than at the Chargers' charges. They are expensive, but by now, Josephine can tell when mercenaries are trying to fleece her, and these ones are not.

"Negotiable," he hastens to say. Maker, but he wants this. "The chief handles all that. I'm just the messenger boy, Ambassador."

Josephine can find the coin. "I'll discuss it with the Commander and Sister Nightingale," she says. She uses their names like bludgeons, these days, where she has not had to use any name but her own in years and years.

He snaps a salute--another novelty. And before he can leave her office, she asks, "Why do you want to join the Inquisition?"

"Me?"

Josephine asks this of every mercenary who comes into her office, catches them at the door, off-guard, when they think they've won. "This was your idea," she ventures. "Or else the Iron Bull would be here himself."

It's a shot in the dark, but it lands. "I was in the Tevinter army," Aclassi says. "Stationed out of Perivantium. After a few years of scrapping with Nevarrans over the border, and a few more years of fighting for coin-- the Chargers don't take bad jobs, mind--if I'm going to die, I want it to be in a fight that means something. Not over a line on a map, or a few coins in a nob's pocket."

*

 _This has gone on too long. Someone must restore order,_ Leliana had said. _You will make Thedas love us as we do so. The world will never be the same; I can think of no one better to dictate what form it will take when we're finished._

She had been on bent knee when she'd said it. Josephine had been charmed by it, at the time, and done in by her own ambition. Her name would be forever linked to Most Holy's. She would not be beholden to any king, any merchant princes who wished tariffs raised or lowered, she would be free to make whatever alliances she so chose, and succeed or fail on her own merits; and to keep an eye on Leliana, whose duties had lain heavier and heavier on her shoulders since the Circles rebelled.

It was only luck that had seen their party lost on the mountainside on the way to Conclave, luck, that she had not encountered any demons Commander Cullen and the soldiers with him could not dispatch. Leliana _knows_ this, and still manages to blame herself. It manifests itself in a certain intensity. An uncomfortable scrutiny. A tail Josephine pretends not to notice, or feel stifled by.

"You met with a representative of the Bull's Chargers today," Leliana says, coming into her office and dropping a thin sheaf of reports on her desk. Everything she has on them. It isn't much.

Minaeve, taking some notes over whatever corpse is on her table today, gathers up her papers and hustles out of the room.

"He was mannerly," Josephine says. In truth, she'd liked him as a person, she'd liked his speech, but _like_ alone was not a good enough reason for anything, in her world.

"That's new."

"They're expensive."

"Not new."

"I can talk down their price." Josephine opens the first page the reports. "I count the fact that this doesn't start with a list of crimes they've committed as an endorsement, by now. We may as well bring them on."

They had established a division of power when they'd arrived at Haven, before the talks had even begun; Leliana does not _actually_ have any say in what mercenary companies they do or don't hire. This is not to say Leliana's opinions don't matter. But Josephine has the final word on all financial matters, and all the political ones, too. Military matters fall under Cullen and Cassandra's joint purview. (As a compromise, it benefits no one, and will not last. Josephine does her best to be virtuous, and let it come to a natural end, rather than dropping a word here, a word there, and convincing them it's the best course of action. But Cassandra will step aside, in favor of acting as the Herald's sword-arm and shield.)

"May as well?" is all Leliana can say, then. "We can't make any mistakes."

"We also can't afford to dither. Of course, Commander Cullen might disagree."

"No--no, you're right," Leliana hastens to say, lest she be seen agreeing with Cullen. Before she leaves, she puts a blanket over Josephine's shoulders. This much, Josephine can accept.

*

Commander Cullen's office, such as it is, is a dirty tent in the center of the troop encampment. For the momentous occasion of her visit, he has brought out a bottle of confiscated brandy, and asked her to authenticate it. Josephine, who is no connoisseur of fortified wines, and who is asked to tell whether some bottle or another is truly Antivan-made, declares them real or not based on her mood.

In place of a snifter, he gives her a chipped brown mug. It is clean, where his own is tea-stained, and he handles it with great care—something he brought with him from Kirkwall.

The brandy will be real, she decides.

"Viscontessa," Cullen says, "you're sure you're not cold?"

"A few glasses of this will warm me as well as anything," Josephine replies, and raises the mug to him in a salute. She makes a great production of taking in its bouquet, when, for all she knows, it could be druffalo piss. "To the taste of my homeland. And, please—'Josephine' or 'Ambassador' will do; the title doesn't signify."

"Ambassador." He looks intently down at this Iron Bull's contract, as though it will divulge some secret Josephine has not already explained to him.

No. The two of them share a room in the Chantry, with Seeker Pentaghast. (Not even Josephine knows where, or whether, Leliana sleeps.) He wears a pair of undersized glasses when he reads in the evening; they are constantly sliding down his nose. She could have them fixed for him. With a word, she could have them brought down from their room. Would it be an insult, if she did? Someone had ought to look after him.

They met in the parlor of a Denerim inn room, while Cassandra and Leliana had a small disagreement about one another's appointments. _You brought us_ Meredith's _creature as a commander?_ Leliana had shouted, and Cassandra had said, _And I agreed to bring on your little Antivan pet without one complaint!_

It had gone on for a half-hour, while Josephine wrote letters to her family, explaining why she had given up a lucrative, prestigious, vital position for this fool's gamble, and Cullen had pretended to read a book.

"Cullen Rutherford," he'd said, underneath the sound of the argument. He had been too thin for his frame, and his hair had been a wiry mop of curls. "I, ah, know you're Josephine Montilyet. Cassandra spoke of little else but you, on the way here. When Serah Tethras stopped picking at her, that is."

Some cousin of the famous author, she was sure. "Only good things, I should hope," Josephine had responded.

He'd inclined his head toward the door. "Naturally. As I'm sure Sister Nightingale will have nothing but good to say of me."

"The Iron Bull," Cullen says, here and now.

"What of him?"

"I've, ah, heard things. About him."

Josephine has also heard things—from respectable lords and ladies with bandit problems and chilly beds. She suspects that Cullen's knowledge runs down a different stretch of terrain. After a moment's wait for him to volunteer this information, in which all he does is turn the page and worry at his lower lip. She clears her throat. He turns another page.

Commander Cullen Rutherford, former templar, son of a wheelwright and a farrier, protege of the would-be Butcher of Kirkwall, has achieved the impossible: he has made her feel _awkward_.

"Commander," she says.

He looks up. "Yes?"

"What you know of him," Josephine says. "If you'd care to share."

At the very least, he colors at that. "I don't know if it's suitable—"

"Suitable. For whom?"

"For, ah, persons of your stature and breeding."

She is used to nothing but condescension from the military set in Orlais. The armchair admirals, who have not set foot on the boats they command in years. The second sons and daughters, bought commissions in the army by their parents, if only to keep them too busy to spend all their inheritance. _Of course, ambassador, but you needn't worry your lovely head. I'm_ sure _we'll be able to solve the dispute without bloodshed, if only we involve_ you _._

Here, she does not have to smile and bear it. Here, in Haven, with no audience and no mask, she can show her teeth. His sort respect nothing less.

"I understand," Josephine says, "what you have come here to do. I understand what mercenaries do." Cullen opens his mouth to speak, and she holds up a hand, _the_ hand. She is not angry with him. She is only disappointed. She watches it sink into his blond head with no small satisfaction: there is no argument to be had here, because he is _wrong_. "I understand what we'll be hiring the Chargers to do, should we take them on. We need experienced, professional"—killers—"soldiers, to supplement our raw recruits. But this Inquisition Leliana and Cassandra have hired _us_ to build—it will not work if we withhold information from one another."

To her surprise, Cullen—stands straighter. Chastened, he takes a small, close-lipped sip of brandy. He must hate it, too. There. Common ground. She files the detail away for later use. Perhaps a ceremonial pouring-out into the snow of a particularly awful bottle, and the opening of a good wine, if wine is what he prefers.

"It is said that their leader doesn't accept questionable jobs," Cullen says. "They handle unconventional problems."

"All of Thedas is an unconventional problem, at the moment."

"And all of Thedas is our problem, because Most Holy made it so. There's a tale—exaggerated, I'm sure—of the Chargers and a nest of spiders—"

Before Cullen can finish his sentence, a cheer goes up outside the tent. Cullen is outside before it can begin to subside, ready to crack heads.

Josephine pushes the tent flap aside far enough to see Lieutenant Aclassi's entire face make the intimate acquaintance of Cassandra's shield. His—frankly gratuitous—maul drops from his hands. She cannot see him, where he lays in the mud.

"Maker's breath," she says.

"It's nothing serious," says Cullen, and attempts to usher her back into his office. She stays where she is. "Just some young idiot, looking to prove he can beat the Hero of Orlais in single combat. Seeker Cassandra will restore order." He peers at the contract again. "I don't like this exclusivity clause—can we re-word it?"

"Oh, Commander," Josephine says. "Never, ever think you need to ask permission."

With that, she ducks under his arm and walks directly into the crowd. The crowd, unprepared for a small, unarmed, well-dressed woman to come barreling through it, parts in a wave. Seeker Pentaghast has already forgotten the lieutenant, and is lecturing onlookers about the importance of footwork; Aclassi, for his part, hoists himself up on a fencepost.

His nose is bloodied. As she fumbles blindly through the pockets of her dress for a handkerchief, he tests a few of his teeth with his tongue, and, satisfied, turns to look down at her.

"I do hope you've enjoyed this taste of the Inquisition's hospitality," Josephine says.

"What a taste," he replies.

His voice is dreamy. Cremisius Aclassi, covered in mud from neck to boots, with a bruise rising on his jaw and his maul still on the ground, having been trounced in public by the best fighter in Thedas, could not possibly look more delighted. He turns the entire force of his smile on her, and. Josephine is immune to smiles. She is immune to handsome men, and beautiful women, and anything besides; and bribery, and she has treaded carefully all her career, so that she has done nothing she can be blackmailed for.

That he should look so happy, after being beaten so badly—Cullen looks similarly pleased after Cassandra takes him apart. Josephine will _never_ understand it. She will need to make a study of the species.

Josephine holds out her handkerchief. "Is anything broken?" she asks.

"She went easy on me," Aclassi says, and wriggles out of a gauntlet to take the lacy edge of her handkerchief and examine it. "I can't take get blood on this," he says. "Look at the lace, it's _point de gaze_."

She looks at it—is it? She has never thought on it, beyond, _It is beautiful_ and _I have the money to afford it, now, and I deserve something useless and pretty_.

In deference to his delicate sensibilities, she folds it over the lace and wipes a bit of blood off his high cheekbone with the cloth. There is a scrape under his eye, too; she dabs at it. When he doesn't swoon, she wipes at the corner of his mouth, then down, where the blood has dripped onto his neck. There will be a fearsome bruise on his jaw, and she turns his face toward her to examine it with the barest touch of her finger to his chin.

"I have more," she says, handing it over to him. "You know clothes, then?"

"Your coat is Ander wool, Fereldan-made. It's not warm enough for the cold, so I'd say you bought it in Amaranthine on the way here. Your dress"—he holds out his hand for permission, and she nods, and unbuttons the top button of her coat. He runs one careful finger over her collar. "Cotton. Rivaini."

"You have a gift," Josephine murmurs.

There is an opportunity for an innuendo, there. Rather than seize upon it, he only favors her with a crooked smile, which she ignores. "It's just a party trick. My da," he says. "He had hopes for his—for the next generation of Aclassi tailors. I got apprenticed out to a couturier in Asariel for a few years. Hoped I'd marry into the family. You're a nob, you understand how it is."

Maman and their hawkish land steward, handing over a file of every eligible man and woman in Antiva, complete with their assets, debts, and particular vices. _Josefina, my little dove. My sweet daughter. Fina, for Andraste's sake, pick one and be done with it, or we will choose one_ for _you._ "Something of it," Josephine replies. "You joined the army, and now you fight for pay?"

Aclassi grunts. There is a story, then. There are any number of reasons one might become a mercenary; a man who can identify types of wool and lace at a glance would not have joined out of pure bloodlust. A further reason to make a study of the species.

"The Chief'll love her," he says, gesturing to Cassandra, whose lecture has become a rant. Well. Not everyone is meant for teaching. "Bring her along, up to the Storm Coast. You'll get whatever terms you want."

"Ambassador," Cullen says, from behind them. Aclassi, she notes with some small, strange, pleasure, is taller than he is.

"I was seeing to our guest. Lieutenant Aclassi," Josephine says, waving his hand away when he attempts to return her handkerchief, "this is Commander—"

"We've met," they say in unison.

"Ah," she says, taking in Cullen's resigned glance toward the sky, and Aclassi's red ears. "You mistook Seeker Pentaghast for the commander, didn't you. One would think she'd be used to it."

*

Varric is the only one who hates the weather on the Storm Coast more than Josephine, and he does the lion's share of the complaining. The rain is a constant, cold drizzle; the ground is spongy to walk on, and Josephine has already ruined a pair of boots. But it is better than bringing an entire mercenary company all the way to Haven, in the event that negotiations go southward. Cullen and Leliana look comfortable in the rain, but, then, they would look comfortable walking out of the middle of a blizzard. Josephine has seen it, and boggled.

Cullen has his hand on the pommel of his sword, and is pointing out to her, with exaggerated casualness, the flow of the battle beneath them. How the Chargers know which demons are the greatest threat, and how to corral them away from one another. Leliana has had the same arrow nocked for at least the last ten minutes.

Let them be displeased. Let them hate the thought of her exposed to violence, and let them imagine themselves sufficient to keep her from it. _She_ is the one with ultimate authority over how their funds are used, not them. It is not unreasonable to want proof that her investment will yield returns, and there is no one available to her who knows more about fighting demons than Cullen.

There must be the Iron Bull, a blur of grey, cleaving demons in half. Lieutenant Aclassi and his maul. Adaar and Lady Vivienne, twin blazes of flame and ice. There, another mage, Cullen says, pretending to be an archer—you could tell she did not drawing her bow as far back as a real archer ought, and her arrows always found their targets, he said. Varric, at a comfortable distance, picking off demons before they can reach Seeker Pentaghast.

Adaar raises her marked hand in the air, and Josephine is queasy, watching the sickly green light of the rift pulse. She cannot look too intently up at the Breach, either. There is—a pulling, a puckering in the fabric of the world, she should not be able to feel it in her gut, on every inch of her skin, and Leliana returns her arrow to its quiver, wordlessly takes her hand, runs a thumb over her knuckles until it is over.

"They're excellent," Cullen says, once it's over. "Your plan to meet with the Iron Bull alone, however...."

This, again.

"I will have Master Tethras with me," Josephine says. "You two, and the Herald, and Madame de Fer, _and_ Seeker Pentaghast, will all be within shouting distance, should this Iron Bull try to—to compromise Bianca's virtue."

Leliana clears her throat. "We need to make a show of force. All we have at the moment is a _show_ , after all."

As one, they try to herd her out of the rain. Have they put aside their differences and coordinated this? It would be sweet, if they weren't both utterly wrong. Josephine stands her ground, watching the aftermath of the fight below them. "He already knows we have no real army to speak of," Josephine says. "Despite your best efforts so far, Commander." The compromise with Cassandra had fallen apart within weeks, just as she'd expected it would. "We don't need to remind him. I go alone."

They continue to protest. Josephine does not listen. A dark-haired elven woman pulls a cask of ale off a supply cart, and cleaves it open with an axe, while a big human holds it steady. Adaar pulls the Iron Bull aside for a talk. Varric and another dwarf are getting their wounds patched up by a human, and laughing at his joke. Lieutenant Aclassi, a Tevinter, a man from the nation in Thedas with the most disgusting alienages, is clearly on the receiving end of a good-natured twitting by a blonde elf.

"When you look at the Chargers, at the Iron Bull, what do you see?" she asks them. "Commander, you see a military man, like yourself. Yes?" Cullen nods. "Leliana, you see..."

"A formidible warrior," says Leliana, but there is a distant look in her eyes. One of her companions during the Blight had been a qunari. She does not speak much on that time.

"I look at the Chargers," Josephine says, "I look at so many races fighting together under one banner, and I see a man whose primary talent is bringing people together. If you think he cannot also pull them apart, you are mistaken. I meet with him alone."

It is, all told, a bit of a leap. That so many races work in tandem could also speak to the Iron Bull's ability to instill fear in his subordinates. But his lieutenant spoke of the man with something like love in his voice. It seems unlikely.

"And the Herald?" Leliana asks.

"It's none of her concern," Josephine says. She _does_ like Adaar, but Adaar's primary function is to wave her hand around and be seen doing good works in the Inquisition's name. "I am hardly in any danger. The Iron Bull wants our coin. He has a reputation for professionalism. You both met with his lieutenant, at Haven."

"A well-mannered young man," Cullen grudgingly admits.

Leliana considers this. Cullen has already taken Josephine's side. In all things, he is eager to please, and trusts to her guidance in matters requiring delicacy. But the Inquisition, it has changed her relationship with Leliana—they have been friends for years. In Val Royeaux, they grew in power as ambassador and Left Hand side by side. But Leliana, a hero of the Fifth Blight, intimate companion to the Divine, had never _needed_ Josephine in the way that Josephine had needed her.

Until now. And Leliana has not sat at a negotiating table in years; as a representative of Most Holy herself, she was free to take what she wished. She will be a disaster, at Josephine's side.

At last, Leliana says, "Very well."

That she should have to expend so much effort to talk them around at _all_ —no. A matter for another time.

When Adaar comes up the hill, her face is thunderous.

"That fucker down there is Ben-Hassrath," she says. "I don't care if the qunari want to share information with us, I'm not working with him."

"I'm sure you won't have to see him," Leliana says smoothly, and takes Adaar aside. "Come, we'll walk, and you'll tell me all about the qunari."

The rest of the Herald's party comes up the hill more slowly, and behind them, Iron Bull and Lieutenant Aclassi.

"You ready for this?" Varric asks. Varric, who would like to renounce his ties with the Merchant's Guild, but has profited handsomely from them. One does not become a deshyr ithout knowing one's way around a contract negotiating table, and as a known associate of the Champion of Kirkwall, the woman who fought and killed the Arishok in single combat, he carries a certain cachet.

 _Look, Scribbles,_ Varric had said, when Josephine mentioned it. _I know the stories—shit, I made up most of the stories, but the truth is, Hawke barely made it out of that fight alive. And she was screaming most of the time. And running. Lots of running._

 _Scribbles_. First, she was 'Dollface,' which she vetoed firmly as a nickname, then 'Princess.' 'Scribbles' is the least bad of the bunch.

From Leliana, Josephine knows the Ben-Hassrath are fearsome, implacable spies, undetectable until it is too late, and brilliant at rooting out enemy agents. A Vashoth could have any number of reasons to mistrust them. Tal-Vashoth mercenaries, too, are known for their savagery; the Iron Bull takes her hand and greets her with a perfect, courtly, _Antivan_ bow, kissing the air an inch from her skin.

"We had a Crow do some jobs with us," he says, at Josephine's raised eyebrow.

Sitting across the table from her and Varric, with Lieutenant Aclassi at her side, the Iron Bull does not pick up the revised contract. He looks at it from his vast height, and tries to get even more distance from it. His nose wrinkles, just once. Josephine knows the look. It is Cullen's not-squint—from age, not lyrium withdrawal.

"Before we start," Josephine says, "Master Tethras, will you have a scout sent down to the Chargers' encampment to fetch their captain's spectacles?"

There. An exchange of pleasantries.

The negotiations are rote. The Chargers are much in fashion in Orlais, and do not want for work—for the moment. But the fashion changes so quickly, Josephine says. Month to month. Week to week. The Inquisition stands to confer prestige upon them, the Chantry's own seal of approval, and she knows this is nonsense as surely as the Iron Bull does. The Chantry does not even approve _them_ , let alone some mercenary band led by an oxman. But puffery is all part of the game. At the very least, they can pay the Chargers' exorbitant fees, where half of Orlais is, or will soon be, bankrupted by the civil war. The work is meaningful. They will not misuse the Chargers, or attempt to sacrifice them as pawns—certainly not at the prices they'll be paying.

"Good fights for a good cause," Aclassi says. The Bull rolls his eye. A Tevinter, born to a family of tailors, subject to his country's propaganda since birth, joking easily with a qunari. A qunari, who has surely 'seen action'—one of Cullen's sterile, military turns of phrase—on Seheron, only _rolling his eyes_ at a 'Vint.

"Now," Josephine says. "Let us talk about your, shall we say, _charge_ sheet, Ser Bull. I've found some discrepancies that need addressing."

The discrepancies are a test. She would find them insulting, if they weren't so well-hidden.

"It's okay," Varric says, once it's over. "Most people underestimate Scribbles at first."

"Ruffles," the Bull says.

"I beg your pardon?" Josephine says.

"'Scribbles' isn't working for you, is it. Try 'Ruffles.'"

"Shit," Varric says. "You're right. Ruffles, I'm going to show our new friend here around camp."

Ruffles is... not horrible. Still, there is a matter of principle: "They are _ruches_ ," Josephine mutters, for Aclassi's ears only, even though Varric and the Bull have left the tent.

There is still a mottled bruise on his jaw from his fight with Cassandra. He was lucky, Josephine understands now, to get away with so little. "Too late," he says, gathering up the papers on the table. "Chief gives you a nickname, you're stuck with it forever."

"And yours is?"

"'Krem,'" he says. "Qunari, you know—they don't get names when they're born. It's all picked or given. Must be nice. Your commander and spymaster looked pretty pissed, when we came by."

His tone, as he skims their revisions to the contract, is disinterested. Casual. Just a mercenary expressing interest in his new employers, and certainly not pumping one of them for information about possible schisms. Aclassi's captain may be a spy, but _he_ isn't. Josephine weighs the value of the information, and finds it negligible. (Leliana would have her tell him nothing.)

"They didn't want me to come along," Josephine says. "They didn't want me watching your fight, and they absolutely did not want me negotiating with only Varric at my side."

Aclassi makes a noncommital noise.

"Do _you_ wish I hadn't come?" she asks him.

"Me? No. Not my business. You've got the purse strings. And you're no glass ornament, I can see that much. Here," he says, and opens one of his pouches, pulls out something white. "I cleaned this for you, my lady."

It's her handkerchief. She has not even thought of it, since she gave it to him.

"Cold water's the trick for bloodstains," he goes on, while she stares dumbly down at it. "No shortage of that, at Haven. Thought you could use it back."

He has not only cleaned it. Maker, but he has monogrammed it for her. Fine needlework—Josephine herself cannot manage any sewing more demanding than patching a sail— _JCM,_ with an ornate crown, and the sweetiest, smallest flowers, to match the lace border. She cannot imagine when a mercenary might find the time to make such a tiny work of art, let alone one for a near-stranger.

A stranger he now has reason to curry favor with. Josephine pushes aside her wonder, folds the handkerchief and places it in her dress's pocket, and summons a polite, bland smile.

"Thank you, ser," she says. "If you'll excuse me, I have colleagues to soothe." 


	2. As we point the way

That Adaar is a mercenary is the least of Josephine's problems, in convincing people that she is Andraste's chosen; the Valo-Kas are an esteemed company, and it is nothing, to imply that Justinia herself selected them to be security at the Conclave. If the disaster could not have been prevented by a fifty templars, by the Divine's personal guard, _and_ her Left and Right Hands, it could not have been prevented by hirelings. A tragedy. Yes.

That Adaar is Vashoth is the next obstacle. By Adaar's account, her foremothers left the Qun generations ago. The Rivaini ambassador to Orlais owes Josephine innumerable favors, and has an official paper trail forged for her. Problem solved. That Adaar is a mage—well, Josephine settles on saying to the pious, the Maker must have wished Andraste to send them a test to their faith. Who is she to question Him, and His choice in instruments? Who are _they?_ To the monied, she jokes that an mercenary is a good investment. At the very least, she won't die in the field and take her mark with her.

The bigots, who will not be convinced and come to her only to argue, Josephine simply turns to other subjects, and shows the Inquisition's hospitality. The worst of them, she has removed from her presence. She has the power, now. Seeker Pentaghast takes special pleasure in it, when she is called upon, and thus, they make their peace.

When it comes time to choose, Adaar chooses the mages.

Cullen argues bitterly for his brothers and sisters, and he makes a hash of it. They _may_ ally with the Inquisition, even after their display in Val Royeaux. They _may_ be able to suppress the magic of the Breach, with some nebulously described, rarely-used ability, a sort of enormous Silencing, which requires an unimaginable amount of lyrium. If he had come to Josephine first, she may have helped him prepare a better argument. (She would not have. She has never knowingly made a losing bet in her life.)

Only think of your fellow mages, Leliana says to Adaar. Cast out by all nations. Hunted by the fearful, the vengeful, the straggling remnants of the templars. Fallen under a magister's influence, huddled in the shadow of Redcliffe. There are children. There are the elderly, the doddering senior enchanters who have not left their high towers in sixty years, the Tranquil, the ill, the infirm. They need the Inquisition, more than anyone in Thedas.

There is no such thing as a defenseless templar, after all, Leliana says, with a pointed glance at Cullen.

Josephine is not blinded enough by affection to find this too far, even for Leliana. There are any number of good reasons to hate templars. There are any number of good reasons, even, to not want one in charge of the Inquisition's forces. This is _pettiness_. Cullen's expression is thunderous, before he schools it into bland resignation. Adaar, who ignores the two of them when they get like this, because _she_ can, rolls out her map of the Hinterlands and begins plotting her route to Redcliffe.

If anyone can find a way through this, it is Josephine. She catches herself worrying at the handkerchief in her pocket, rubbing her initials between her thumb and forefinger, and stops herself.

The handkerchief. It has been a problem, these past weeks. A presumptuous gift, she tells herself, and shuts it up in her trunk. She has received so many tokens of admiration in her life that this one doesn't signify. Then she brings out it out again, because it would be a shame to deny herself even the smallest bit of beauty, and it _was_ made for her with Aclassi's own two hands, rather than bought or commissioned. And back, and forth.

A problem, but the very least of her problems. Cullen snipes at Leliana over meals. Leliana pretends it is beneath her notice, and quietly undercuts Cullen in front of Seeker Pentaghast.

A week after Adaar leaves for Redcliffe, and without consulting Josephine beforehand about the cost, or bringing Leliana into the operation, Cullen sends a detachment of the Chargers to Therinfal Redoubt, led by Lieutenant Aclassi.

"Not to recruit them," he says, in Josephine's office. "Only to gather intelligence on their movements, or lack thereof. I can't imagine why they might have barricaded themselves away."

"I see," Leliana says, when he tells them. "And you didn't think my scouts could have done just as good a job as your pet mercenaries, Commander?"

" _Our_ pet mercenaries—it isn't too late," Josephine cuts in, before Cullen can say something catastrophically stupid. By now, she can sense the change in the air when he's preparing to be tactless. "Send Harding and her people to supplement them. There need not be any harm done."

Leliana scoffs. "I can't imagine what a group of experienced trackers would have to contribute."

Then, on the most dramatic note possible, she leaves. To do what, Josephine cannot say. Leliana will die before she actively sabotages an operation, even an unsanctioned one, because the Inquisition is all she has left of Justinia, and she loves what they are building even above Josephine, even above _Cassandra_. (Josephine cannot help the pang of jealousy.) None of this means she cannot, or will not, make Cullen's job more difficult.

_You could have had any commander in Thedas!_ she had shouted at Cassandra, that night at the inn, while Josephine and Cullen glanced uncomfortably at one another across the room. _The Legion offered Kardol's services, for Andraste's sake! If you needed both a Fereldan and Free Marcher, you might have offered Guard-Captain Aveline the job! I know how you admire her! I gave you a list, and you chose_ this _one?_

"Well," Cullen mutters. "That went as well as could be expected."

He prepares to leave, but Josephine pinions him to the spot with the same look she might give to a foolish aide trying to dismiss himself before his dressing-down is completed. Cullen freezes.

"What I don't understand," Josephine says, in her most patient tones, "is why you didn't feel the need to involve _me_ ," she says.

"This is a templar matter. Leliana wouldn't have agreed to it in the first place. And you—"

"Wouldn't have understood? Wouldn't have approved the expenditure?"

"You know what I mean."

Josephine stands "Take a walk with me, Commander," she says, and marches from her office. This, she can manage. The first step to containing this mess is making Cullen apologize to Leliana; and the first step to making him apologize sincerely is to make him understand the magnitude of his blunder. She takes only a cloak with her, despite the bite of the cold outside (the better to soften him, when he sees how she shivers), and takes him up a hill overlooking Haven. A ruined fence is all that remains of a pasture.

She sits on the fence, swinging her feet like a country girl. Cullen leans on it, avoids her gaze.

"You say this is a templar matter," she says, without prelude, "but you are not a templar. The day you left Kirkwall with Cassandra, and Varric bound and gagged in the hold of the ship, you were no longer a templar, and you know it. It makes you feel... less, I imagine. But _I_ know your value."

Josephine reaches down to close her hand around his shoulder. She feels all of his attention come to bear on her. Here, the fruits of her study of his species: templars are not touched, not often. In Orlais, she would have used this against him, used him whenever she wanted something, and moved onto the next. There are always more ambitious soldiers who think they can play the Game better than a simple _Antivan_. At Haven, she uses it sparingly. A laugh here. A smile there. A playful bat at his arm.

There will be a time in her life, she is sure, when the Game has left her. When she will be nothing but a simple businesswoman. When she does not need to think, _In Orlais, I would have—_

Cullen looks up at her, waiting for her to tell him what he is worth.

"Your value—to the last inch, shall we say," Josephine says. "To the last copper the Inquisition sends along to your family. But we both know Leliana was against your appointment from the start, and thinks you can be replaced, if only you could be induced to leave. You have not seen her at her cruelest. I have, and I know you have no defenses against her.

" _I_ know you are well-beloved by our troops, and ousting you so early would hurt morale irreparably, but when you send our _expensive mercenaries_ into unknown territory without first bringing Leliana into the operation, you do nothing to convince _her_ of it." Josephine squeezes Cullen's shoulder, as hard as she can. He looks up at her, face... stricken. Lost. _Good_. "And if she makes you leave," Josephine goes on, "where will you go? There is a new Knight-Commander in Kirkwall—do you think she'll step down for you, if you fail here? You are not so famous that you will have your choice of posts. Think on your future, and pray to the Maker that we can fix this."

She does not wait for his response. There is nothing he can say. She hops off the fence and makes her way down the hill, and Cullen does not follow her. When she chances a look over her shoulder, he is gazing over the fires of Haven, biting his lower lip. His hand comes up to touch his shoulder.

*

Adaar returns with a fresh wound on her head, for a start. She comes back with a hundred conscripted mages Josephine must scramble to feed, clothe, house, and put to work. Wordlessly, she hands Josephine a strongly-worded letter from King Alistair and Queen Anora—mostly the queen—stating that, while they appreciate the Inquisition's solving the Redcliffe problem on their behalf, they might like to step lightly in Ferelden in the future. Then Adaar goes off to the tavern to brood, and leaves the rest to her advisors, as is her wont.

And Adaar comes back with a Tevinter whose main talents are drinking and raising spirits from beyond the Fade. Lord Dorian Pavus, member of the Circle of Magi at Vyrantium, son of Lord Magister Halward Pavus of Asariel, and so on, and so forth. Gereon Alexius's protege, come to Redcliffe, he claims, to stop his former master and save a dear friend.

"But, my Lady Montilyet," he says, bending over her hand in a manner reminiscent of the Iron Bull, to kiss the air above it, "do call me _Dorian_."

The name does not ring any bells. Josephine avoids dealing with Tevinters as much as possible—they are rarely relevant, in matters of trade between Antiva and Orlais—but she retains one on staff. A young altus, fleeing the tedium of being her mother's undersecretary in the Magisterium, well-connected, a gifted mage, eager to prove her worth to Josephine.

"Pavus. Pavus." The girl, Aemiliana, taps her chin. "Had a friend who went to his Circle. _One_ of his Circles. Kept getting kicked out. Walking scandal, that one. Bit of a frump, too."

As Aemiliana manages to include at least one strategically-placed panel of sheer black lace in all of her robes, and is wearing enough gold to outright purchase a small freehold, Josephine feels safe disregarding her opinion of Lord Dorian's taste in clothes. "The scandal?" she prompts.

"A bit of"—Aemiliana wrinkles her nose—"well, you know, my lady. Vyrantian discourse."

Josephine softens immediately toward him. In Antiva, openly pursuing her preferences marks her as an eccentric, at worst; in Tevinter, she would be a scandal. Dorian becomes a nuisance, but a charming one.

Adaar comes back with all of these things, and a tale of a future in which they fail in their purpose. The world ravaged by red lyrium. The empress, assassinated. The fledgling Inquisition, scattered to the winds. Leliana, held and tortured for months, along with Cassandra and Vivienne. Cullen, leading the last of the resistance.

_What of me?_ is all Josephine can think, while Cullen and Leliana suspend their differences long enough to interrogate Adaar and Dorian. _Where am I in all this?_

"They took my face," Leliana says afterward, in Josephine's office. She examines the bookshelf next to Josephine's desk. There is nothing of interest to be found: the Fereldan tax code, import and export regulations for four nations. The full text of the Nevarran Accords, if they are to bed down with the Ben-Hassrath. In her youth, she may have had time for pleasure reading, but no longer. "How creative. And," Leliana goes on, "there made no mention of your fate."

No. Of course not. No one needs a diplomat when there are no longer any nations. A negotiator, possibly. _That_ Josephine may be dead, or still at the Commander's side, or she may have fled to Antiva, to be with her family at the end of the world. She is not that Josephine.

"In the state of mind you've been in since the Conclave, I'm sure you'd kill me yourself, rather than allow the secrets in my head to fall into enemy hands," Josephine says.

Leliana has opted for plain grey leathers today. Without the cowl-and-tabard to make her ominous, the nightmare story told to young spies, she, and her elegant nose, and her sharp, lake-blue eyes, simply look a bit hawk-like. Hardly lethal. Josephine knows better. "Have I been so cold to you?" she asks.

"Leliana," Josephine says, "you are my dear, dear friend. The Leliana they spoke of isn't inevitable. I will not let you become her."

It is larger than Josephine, to keep her from the brink. And while it would be lovely to think this grimness, this rage, do not come from not the funny, charming spy Josephine met in Val Royeaux so many years ago, Josephine knows better. They both know better. This is what Leliana has always been, or might become.

A pretty lie, then. But they have lied to one another before.

Before this can go any farther, however, there is a firm knock at Josephine's office door. Minaeve, come for her nightly dissections—

"Ambassador," Cullen says through the door, and knocks again. "Ambassador, are you there?"

"I'll go," Leliana murmurs, and stands up slowly.

Armed with the knowledge that Leliana wants him gone, Cullen has been bearing up under her barbs all week. It has been admirable. It is time to finish this.

"Come in," Josephine says, and Cullen opens the door, just enough to slip in. Josephine doesn't dare look up at Leliana, who will surely think Josephine engineered this, and will be doing her best to loom.

Cullen half-turns to leave. "If I'm interrupting something..."

"Stay, Commander," says Josephine. "Sister Leliana and I were discussing the news from Redcliffe. Have you had word from the Chargers yet?"

"Not yet."

"A pity," Leliana says.

"Perhaps if they had your birds at their disposal, communications would be faster."

"I'm sure they would."

Josephine sits, pinioned between them. However this plays out, she will set them on the right path.

Cullen takes a deep breath, and says, "I wanted to... apologize. For not bringing you in."

Leliana scoffs and turns to Josephine. "Tell me, Josie, what did you say to him to make him sorry? I can't imagine this was his idea." _You've got him by the short hairs,_ her face says. _He's your responsibility, now._

Josephine knows how Leliana works, at her absolute worst. Now she will go on the offensive, blow her insults out of proportion with the slight, force Cullen to say something so terrible Josephine will be forced to see the wisdom of replacing him. Josephine has danced this dance willingly before, when it suited her, and enjoyed it greatly, but it is not needed here.

"As if I don't have a thought in my own head!" Cullen snaps, on cue.

"Tell me, Commander, when you fell off the back of the turnip cart and into the templars—"

"I don't care what rock you crawled from under after the Blight, Sister Nightingale, I don't—"

Leliana examines her fingernails, and says, softly, "Never presume to speak of the Blight to me."

The argument continues, until surely anyone passing by can hear them; when one of them glances down at Josephine, as though to ask her to confirm one of their points, she makes a point of shrinking, shaking her head, as though her distress is mounting. She had meant to make a great show of being upset with them, tearful, even, but they are being children, and they expect her to wade in and pick up their broken toys when they've finished scrapping.

That is what they think she is good for— _all_ they think she's good for. She won't tolerate it. She shoves up from her desk, slapping her palms down on it, her chair scraping on the stone loud enough to silence both of them.

"You," Josephine says, _shouts_ , "will both stop this now." They both stare. Neither of them have ever heard her raise her voice so, not even Leliana. She is sure of it. She presses her advantage: "You're both being ridiculous."

Leliana attempts, "Josie, I—"

"Josie _, nothing_. We've made mistakes, in our handling of Therinfal." There, she has made them all complicit in it. "I'm sure we'll make many such mistakes before this is over. We move past it, or we let the wounds rot. Leliana, you will send your scouts after the Chargers, and stop being an ass. The harder you try to push the man from the Inquisition, the harder he'll cling to it. He has nowhere else to go."

Cullen makes the grave error of looking smug, and Josephine turns to him. "Commander, if you ever attempt something like this again—if you spend so much as a copper of the Inquisition's money without providing me a full accounting of it, if a single soldier sets foot outside of Haven without at least a word to the two of us, I will know, and I will have you turned off myself.

"You _will_ find a way to work together. I cannot make peace when you've determined there will be none. If you cannot cooperate," Josephine says, "this Inquisition is doomed, and I will not stay on a sinking ship. I"—she takes a deep breath, and allows her shoulders to sag—"am very disappointed. In both of you."

There. Cullen's kicked-dog look; Leliana's naked horror. Their rush to apologize. She'd never go through with the threat; the thought of her departure has clearly never crossed either of their minds, and if they have a single thing in common, it is that neither of them want her gone. They could find a new commander with ease. A spymaster is a taller order, but not wholly impossible. But there is only one Josephine Montilyet in all the world. No one else has her financial acumen, her connections, her reputation, her finesse. _She_ knows her worth.

They rush from her office, leaving Josephine alone with her racing heart. This, here, is why she joined the Inquisition. To force the world back into its proper alignment with her own two hands.

And she has been fidgeting with the handkerchief the entire time. She pulls it from her pocket and shoves it in the drawer of her desk. She'll need to dispose of it, later. _Later_.

*

The Chargers return with news of a slaughter at Therinfal Redoubt, and with six mute, half-starved templars, the only survivors.

Let Leliana debrief them, as best she can. Let Cullen see to their souls. One of them, Rivaini-dark, with astonishing green eyes set in a gaunt face, is the second son of a Fereldan bann, whose wealthy father will be extremelygrateful to hear news of his child's survival, and inclined to be generous with his harvest, his soldiers, or his coin. All three, ideally. One will suffice.

"You can call me Krem, you know," Aclassi says, a week after he returns. "Everybody else does."

"Of course, lieutenant," she says. She personally delivers a sack of gold and a letter of credit to the Iron Bull, every month; she cannot be so familiar with 'Krem.' Besides, he signs all of his notes 'Lieutenant Cremisius Aclassi.' Whatever he was in the Tevinter army, he was not an officer. He lacks the arrogance. She has, on more than one occasion, overcome her distaste for violence and observed the Chargers at practice, to ensure she has made a good investment in them. Several of their number are in the habit of stripping to the waist at the slightest provocation, which is a great balm to Josephine's nerves. Cullen's helpful commentary: Krem is exacting to the point of neurosis—if _Cullen_ calls someone a neurotic, they must be insufferable—but charming and well-liked enough that the troops don't rebel at practicing the same maneuver for the fifth time.

None of this is relevant. Krem marks the rejection with a rueful little smile and does not press his case. "What did you need from me?"

The handkerchief is still in her drawer. "I've already apologized to your captain for the misunderstanding, about the Redoubt. But as you were the one who took all the risks—I'm truly sorry."

"Imagine our surprise when Sister Nightingale's people turned up, saying this was an official Inquisition matter now," Krem says flatly.

_And here I thought we weren't going to get caught up in some petty power struggle,_ the Bull had said, when she'd gone to smooth matters over. _Let alone one from inside the Inquisition. You sure_ you're _the one who should be making this apology?_

_Commander Cullen is the Inquisition's sword-arm. I am our voice._

_Sure._

_He and Sister Nightingale—the issue is resolved. Surely your triumvirate, under the Qun, has its own issues, when a new leader takes their place? It won't happen again, I assure you._

_So what you're saying is, he and Red aren't hiding behind your skirts, they're sitting in the corner and thinking about what they've done while you clean up their mess?_

Accurate, but not worth acknowledging. Maker forbid the Iron Bull think he can score a point on her. _Regardless,_ she'd said, _I'm truly sorry._

"Tell me about Ser Barris," Josephine says, now.

She could have asked him this in the official debriefing. There is no need for her to call Krem in for a private one. But only the Maker knows how long is has been since the family saw their son. They are known to be very... devout, in the Bannorn. Ser Barris may even have been pledged as a toddler. To best prepare his father for the man who came out of the Redoubt, she needs more intimate details than might be found in a dry report.

"Right," Krem begins. "Barris. Delrin. Good man, cares about every one of his templars. All five of them. It took us a day to convince him to let us in, that we'd really swept the fortress for demons, and we weren't just an illusion something cooked up to lure him and his out of hiding. They were all so witless on lyrium you could smell it, walking into the room. It was all he could do to lift a shield in front of the weakest one, when he saw us."

He hesitates. Looks into the candle on her desk, not at her. Runs a hand through his hair, mussing it, then immediately smooths it back into place. "He cried," Krem says. "You know? Waited 'til he was out of sight of our people, and then he cried right on my shoulder. Because it was over, and he still didn't know if we were real."

"I see," Josephine says, picking up a fresh quill, as though she means to take notes. A good detail. Perhaps she'll tone it down to noiseless sobs, in her missive. If she pretends to be cold and unaffected by this, she can be unaffected by it. "He is rested, now?"

"My lady." Krem, still looking at the candle, stands at attention. Such a small, wonderful change in his posture. Like Cassandra, he is never without some sort of breastplate; unlike Cassandra, he is a peacock, and easily owns a half-dozen of them. Tonight's is glossy brown leather, finely and simply tooled, after the fashion of the Iron Bull's harness. It does spectacular things for his shoulders. "I'm glad you called me here. Ser Barris respectfully requests you not write to the bann on his behalf."

"Of course," Josephine says smoothly, "I wouldn't dream of writing without his permission."

_Now_ he looks her directly in the eye. Now his face says, _Liar_.

"Oh, very well," Josephine sniffs. "I may have thought to spread the tale of a noble survivor from Therinfal Redoubt. Let Ferelden speculate on whose lost templar child is safe." Which is, in all, a better plan. A crueler one, too, to give false hope. _This is a war, Josephine, not a masked ball,_ as Cassandra, and Cullen, and Leliana, are so fond of reminding her.

Krem clears his throat. "With all due respect—my lady. I say—write to his father anyway."

"Oh?"

"See, I—I joined up against my family's wishes, my lady. Then I deserted," Krem says. "Never wrote my mother. _Never_ wrote my father. If I go back to Tevinter, I'm a dead man. They don't even know if I'm alive. So I say, send the letter."

"I'll take it under consideration," Josephine replies.

This is the moment Krem should take to excuse himself, painful disclosure or no. But he lingers, chewing on the inside of his cheek, before he says, "There's a wedding on tonight, down at the barracks. The Chief wants you to come, meet the crew, see what we're about. What you paid for."

"That's hardly necessary," Josephine demurs. "I hear nothing but good things of your work—if Cullen or Leliana were dissatisfied, I would hear of it."

"He also wants to show there's no hard feelings for Therinfal. Growing pains, and all. Miscommunications happen."

"And I was under the impression we'd settled the matter to his satisfaction."

Krem goes back to chewing the inside of his cheek, his jaw set stubbornly. _He_ wants her to come. There is a temptation—Orlais, again—to toy with him, to pretend obliviousness, to draw this out—but one night, away from the endless letters she must respond to, the accounts whose balances she needs to check. Away from Leliana's and Cullen's dropping into her office to check on her, and urge her to sleep. Her dress is a very fine shade of purple; it would be a shame if no one were to see it. It will be rowdy company, but no more so than young bards, indolent nobles, or sailors.

"It'll be fun," Krem says, at last.

She should not.

"Oh, very well," Josephine says. "Lead the way, lieutenant."

*

"It's not really a wedding," Krem admits, on the way down, "'least, not in the way you'd think. The Chief doesn't have a nameday, so we picked one for him—the day we became the Chargers, and not the Bleeders. Skinner and Dalish say they're getting married and pick a Chantry sister to harass for a night, the Chief pretends he doesn't know what we're on about, and we throw a party. No shortage of those, in Haven."

"Parties, or Chantry sisters?"

"Both."

The Chargers' barracks are far enough away from the main body of the army that no one takes particular note of the noise coming from them. The company, as of last count, numbers fifty-four souls. Where they have found this much food, Josephine cannot, and will not, imagine. She signed off on their shipment of ale and whiskey herself and never wondered at what it was for. So long as the Chargers didn't become disorderly, she'd thought, it was none of her concern.

There is a bard in attendance, and, as the Maker is merciful, she has a throatier voice than Maryden's. A quartet of minstrels, tuning their instruments. Bunks pushed to the side to form a dancefloor, and little lights hover at the ceiling, which are surely not magical, because the Chargers do not have an apostate in their employ, only archers. If a few of the attendees were wearing ugly masks and plotting to poison one another's drink, she might have closed her eyes and been back in Orlais. The smell of feet is the same, at least.

Krem guides her to the center of the room, where the Iron Bull holds court beneath a towering cake. Two of the Tal-Vashoth Chargers pull Krem off to the side to consult about—something or other, she hears the word _dancers_ —and leaves Josephine to face down his captain herself.

The first time they've spoken since Josephine's apology. He sizes her up. Sizes her down. _No hard feelings_ , he'd claimed.

"Ahh," the Bull says. His trousers are far, far more festive than usual, and he holds a tankard of ale in one hand, a piece of cake in the other. "Didn't think you'd make it, Ambassador. I'd bow, but I'm a little busy with my two friends, here."

"No need," says Josephine. "I'm presuming upon your hospitality tonight."

"Presume all you want," Bull replies, with an exaggerated wink. "But, hey, here comes the happy couple. How many times have you two gotten married, now, huh?"

Two elves, wearing extravagant dresses and as much jewelry as Josephine might have happily worn at home in Antiva City. Orlesian tastes are so austere, and Fereldan tastes—threadbare. It is as though no one she's met this far south has ever seen a bolt of silk or satin in their lives, or if they have, it was not in a color more exciting than dark beige or rust-red. Shimmering brown, at the absolute boldest. Dalish, however, wears a spring green gown the color of her vallaslin; Skinner, a deep blue.

"Four times," Skinner says. The dark-haired one, who'd split open the casks with an axe, back on the Storm Coast. This one strips to the waist in practices. She is significantly shorter, and better-muscled, this close up. She screws up her face and squints at Josephine. "Who is this shem? Some tavern girl?"

"Five times," Dalish corrects her. "She's the _ambassador_ , you ninny. Krem's guest? Gives us our money every month? You've seen her before."

Skinner shrugs. "We have a guest, too. We're ignoring her."

The "Chantry sister" they've found to "harass" is another elf, blonde, with flushed cheeks and robes that hang off her like furniture covers. Josephine is reasonably certain the woman is one of Leliana's spies. One of the important ones.

"If it makes you feel any better, Skinner really doesn't recognize you, Ambassador," the Bull says. "Any wise words for the newlyweds?"

Josephine has any number of speeches ready to be adapted for such an occasion, depending on the company and the mood of the room. And the mood of the room is... already quite drunk.

"I hope," Josephine says, with all the gravitas she can summon, taking up the nearest glass, "that you two are deeply happy in your new life together. My mother is a great sailor—she commands my family's fleet personally—and she always tells me that marriage is very much like a boat."

"It will capsize in a storm?" says Skinner, narrowing her eyes. "The crew will mutiny?"

Josephine puts a hand on each of their shoulders. "One never knows what new and exciting holes one will find to plug. Be true to one another."

Someone behind her chokes on their drink—Krem, assuredly. There had also been something about rope, in that lecture, but Maman had gotten that particular, misty look in her eye, and Josephine had stopped listening.

"The dresses," Josephine says, once they've all moved on. "Did you make them?"

"Not me," says Krem. "If I'd made them, they'd be more flattering. More crystals, too. Lots more crystals. Magisters' tastes rub off on you, after a while. I don't have time to do more hem my own trousers, these days. Accounts to balance, people to kill."

Hem his trousers. Keep a fancy leather breastplate well-conditioned and supple. Embroider a handkerchief.

"You brought me here to meet your soldiers," Josephine says, looking around the room. She knows faces, and muscles, but not names. "Introduce me."

Every Charger she encounters, from Skinner, who has already forgotten who she is by the time they come back around to her, to the silent Grim, is ill-at-ease in the presence of the woman who signs their bank draft. Krem introduces her to each of them in with a joke, a wink, a laugh, that makes each of them relax in turn. By the end of their turn around the room, and the beginning of the dancing, it is disturbing, like looking into a mirror. The ease, the way he flits from person to person. The faint hoarseness in his voice by the time he's finished his sixth round of introductions. This must be what a companion sees, when she introduces _them_ at one of her embassy balls.

This is not even one third as opulent as a party she'd throw. There is no _time,_ andshe would never be able to convince Cullen and Leliana of the necessity, even if Haven contained a suitable space. It does not.

Skinner and Dalish take the first dance. The Bull wipes the cake crumbs from his lap and offers his hand to Josephine. In Val Royeaux, she could not possibly have been seen dancing with anyone beneath his rank; Maker only knows what rumors will fly of her attendance at a mercenary's wedding, after tonight. His hands are the size of her face, but he is delicate with her, pleasingly graceful. One dance, and one dance only. She declines every other offer, and retreats to Krem's side.

The Bull picks both Dalish and Skinner up, one in each arm, for the second dance, and the two of them bear it with great dignity—affection, even. They are a family.

This closeness is what she's been missing, these long months, trying to forge the Inquisition's leadership into a force that can _work_ together, and not merely function. She brought the most important part of her embassy staff with her, too, and left the rest in Val Royeaux to ease the transition between ambassadors. Those who are here with her have seen her through her most embarrassing defeats, but they cannot love her as Krem and the Chargers love their Bull.

"What do you think?" Krem asks, when the dance floor is full, and no one is paying attention to them.

"I think that with a few more last names, and a bit of lace, you'd have made a wonderful diplomat, and I would be trying to poach you from under the Iron Bull's nose right now. And—your company, they're all very kind," says Josephine, "and if I'd come incognito, I'm sure they would have been kinder."

"Could've let them mistake you for a tavern girl."

"In thisdress? With this _nose?_ " She covers her mouth over her smile. The miracle of the night: she feels easy with him. Krem needs nothing from her. He wants nothing from her, so far as she can tell, except his pay, and—his hand skims the length of her back, the barest brush of his fingertips, she feels a thrill down her spine in the wake of the touch, a warmth pooling suddenly between her legs—something he cannot have, apparently.

"And what of the Inquisition?" Josephine asks, rather than address it. "Is it the worthy cause you were looking for? Have we lived up to your expectations yet?"

Thoughtfully, his fingers drum on the small of her back, just once. "I don't even know if you've lived up to your own expectations," he says. "Still, for righteousness, you're just about the only game in town."

"There are always the Grey Wardens."

"Too shady for my taste."

"Says the mercenary!"

"Blue and silver aren't my colors, besides." His hand splays out, nudges her closer to him. She goes.

Fingers nimble enough to sew crystals onto a magister's dress; palms rough enough to wield a maul. People are rarely this bold when propositioning her. It is known that those who overstep their bounds with Josephine Montilyet risk far worse than embarrassment. Her past lovers would not have been her lovers at all if they did not know better than to crow about their conquest in public. But Krem cannot be aware any of this. All he knows is that she is beautiful, and not protesting the touch, and that nobles are frequently open to a quick tumble with mercenaries in their employ.

The brides are off in a corner, necking. The spy has disappeared, but there is a meaningful rustling under Dalish's enormous dress. The party has swelled to what must be a hundred people, now, spilled out the doors and into the snowy night, and the Bull is leading them all in a drunken song; no one pays any particular attention to two elves groping one another in the corner.

"Those two," Josephine says, "are they aware that there are other people in the room?"

"Sure," Krem replies. "Do they care? Not really. You get used to it."

"I should hope so," she murmurs, swallowing hard. "I wouldn't have expected such a failure of discipline from your company. This is"—the spy's foot pops out from beneath the skirts—"quite the lapse. I'm beginning to question my judgment in hiring you."

"It's their wedding night." Krem's fingers drum on her back again. "Might be their fifth wedding night. But it's still their wedding night. Besides, nobody in Haven throws a party like us."

It would be too generous, to call his smile lopsided. If he is trying to charm her—well, she was already charmed, that day in the practice ring, when he turned away her handkerchief because it was too fine to bloody. Charmed twice over, when he embroidered it for her. And what of it? She meets charming people every day; if she allowed herself taken in by all of them, she would never have gotten anywhere in life.

If she were someone else. If she were a tavern girl, a maid, she'd let him take her somewhere private, pull her skirts up around her waist for him, let him drag down the bodice of her dress. She has seen him stripped down, she knows how strong he is, she can picture in great detail his fingers teasing her, driving into her, turning her to a sopping mess on his hand. Wring her out, leave her limp, make her forget her troubles, if only for a moment. That's all she's asked of lovers in the past. She'd find out if he had more of the tailor in him, or the mercenary.

Josephine is his employer; he won't dare disappoint her. The thought has never appealed before now. She has never been the sort to take advantage of the help.

She pulls away from his touch.

"I have a meeting in the morning," she says, and casts about the room for someone who looks sober. The silent blond man in the corner, who Krem introduced her to, and whose name she forgot immediately; or Cullen's young Knight-Captain Briony, crashing the party with one of Josephine's own clerks on on her arm. Of all the Inquisitor's inner circle, only Sera is in attendance, and she is several sheets to the wind and splayed across the laps of two enormous women, besides. No one immediately trustworthy. "I'll need to retire."

Krem takes the hint, and he removes his hand. "Walk you back to the Chantry, my lady?" There is disappointment in his eyes, but he isn't the first young man she's disappointed in her life, and he won't be the last.

"I'll be quite all right on my own," Josephine says. "What do I have to fear in Haven?"


	3. And bayed about with many enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haven falls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> s/o to serenityfails for giving this a once-over, and everyone who's commented.

It does not happen on a beautiful, clear night, when Josephine has declared herself safe and immune from harm. No: the end comes when Josephine is up a hill, touring the—they are not much better than shacks—that will serve as an improvement on the collection of tents the mages have been sleeping in, until now. Aemiliana, keeping a running list of Josephine's complaints with their progress, is taking elaborate pains to look bored with their errand. The surveyor is finished making her case as to why the construction is behind schedule, and has stormed off to consult with the workers. One of the young soldiers on watch makes a filthy joke, and is roundly hushed by his fellows.

Then there is an explosion, from Haven. A distant shrieking. And three armored figures, coming through the treeline to the clearing, followed by—a beast.

They've been talking about this for months. It is the one thing Cullen and Leliana have consistently agreed on: Haven is barely defensible. But when the attack came, it was not meant to happen like this, Josephine was supposed to be safe when the enemy came to their gate, well behind the lines, coordinating their retreat into the mountains.

The figures advance on them.

"Maker," Josephine breathes, groping for Aemiliana's arm, as the realization dawns on her. The helms, the swords on their breastplates—"They're templars."

The workers and the surveyor are nearest them. They fall first. Josephine watches, as though in a dream. It is not until their blood stains the snow that her silly little assistant remembers she is an altus and takes the staff from her back. The soldiers fan out, but even Josephine's untutored eye can see that they are barely more than children in armor, assigned to easy duty.

"Don't let them near us," Aemiliana calls out to the soldiers, then drops a barrier over them and plants herself in front of Josephine. Josephine has seen Lady Vivienne do this a hundred times, and it never grows less eerie to her untrained eyes. "This is _not_ how I'm dying, my lady," she mutters, her fingers tightening on her staff. "Stay near me. You don't know what's out there, between here and Haven. Worst comes to worst, we break for it and run."

Josephine would not move, even if she could. If she does not bear witness, no one will. Memory will wish to elide the details of this day, if she survives. She won't let it. The first two to fall are siblings from a village in the Hinterlands, inspired to join up by the Inquisitor's heroics. A burning sigil appears in the air before her aide, to summon lightning down on the creature's head. There is nothing of the useless dilettante in her, now; she is humming with such power that Josephine imagines she can feel it, that her tremors are not her own fear.

Still, the templars push across the clearing, foot by foot, as though the Inquisition's soldiers aren't there. If not for the barrier, they might have made quick work of her people; they are faster, they are stronger, they are better-trained, and they have no one to protect. Josephine, heart in her ears, forces herself to watch every moment, even when a soldier goes down with a cry, her sword broken, even as Aemiliana leans down to pull a knife from her boot.

"I'm going to do something regrettable, now." Aemiliana sets the blade to the side of her forearm, well away from any important veins. "I don't want you to see it."

Josephine watches. When the knife is halfway down Aemiliana's arm, a great howling of wind sweeps the clearing. The ground shakes. Josephine grabs the back of her aide's robes, to steady herself, and everyone else falls to their knees.

And then, through the trees, more figures—Josephine's gut clenches—a bolt of pure light that sets the abomination aflame, and a greataxe, flashing in the evening sun.

The Chargers. Only three of them. The ground stops shaking. Josephine gathers her aide up into her arms, presses a fistful of black robe into the bleeding, even as a faint blue glow appears, too, around Krem and his people. This is a fair fight. She shuts her eyes, and does not open them until a rough hand shakes her, and another set peels Aemiliana away from her arms.

Krem is barely armored enough for a practice drill, let alone a battle. He is bleeding from a dozen places, and Dalish barely spares a moment to put a hand on his shoulder and close the cuts before tending to Aemiliana's wound. Behind him, the bodies of the templars, their monster, and their dead soldiers alike are aflame, lest they come back. Josephine did not even know their names. Skinner swears swears at Aemiliana the remaining four soldiers until they fall into a rough formation, as Krem pulls Josephine up, slides an arm around her shoulders, and urges her down the hill. "Come on," he says, voice hoarse from smoke, "new route through the mountains. Sent us to find you."

Josephine nods numbly and stumbles along with him. He is half carrying her, which would be mortifying, if she could think of such things. Below the tree line, Haven burns. The smoke is lit from within, a glowing column in the night. "The Herald," she says, as they run, "Leliana, the Iron Bull, Cullen—"

"Missing in action, fine, completely fine, heading the retreat through the mountains. Happy?"

Josephine falters mid-step. The Herald can't be missing. She can't be. If Adaar is lost, they're all lost. The future from Redcliffe will come to pass. Thedas will burn. For the first time since the templars came through the trees, a sob wells up in her, but she will not let it out. It is cold. Night is falling. Her cloak and boots aren't warm enough, and Krem isn't wearing a coat at all. Her home of the past nine months is on fire. If no one made it to her office to grab her records and her correspondence, she will need to start her work all over again. She presses her fist to her mouth, like a useless child.

Krem takes her face between his gloved hands, and he is plainly, nakedly annoyed with her dithering. "Look. Ambassador," he says. "Look at _me_. Me, you, this whole Inquisition, the world, we're all fucked, until further notice. You worry about you. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. Got it?"

She pulls her cloak tighter about her body—and nods. And runs.

* * *

The facts, to be embellished upon later: there is an avalanche, and Josephine feels it like thunder in her bones They join a group of stragglers coming up the mountain. Someone, Josephine hardly registers who, gives Krem a coat, and passes stinking blankets out to the rest of them. One of the soldiers, a boy of no more than seventeen, begins to weep. Another one, hardly older, puts his arm around the boy's shoulder.

Finally— _finally_ , they come to the bedraggled little encampment the Inquisition has made for itself, deep in the mountains. Josephine allows Krem to guide her while she listens to the mutters around them. Adaar brought the mountain down on herself. There are search parties. Josephine has never believed Adaar to be touched by the Blessed Lady, except as a useful fiction to be dangled before true believers, but even if she had been, no one person could survive that.

It's over. It doesn't matter anymore, if someone rescued her papers. All they can do now is stave off an inevitable end. The thought is a drop of water, falling into an empty bucket. But there are more people milling about than she might have hoped. She pulls her scarf over her head, covering her hair and shadowing her features, before anyone can realize who she is.

Krem bids her sit down on a barrel, as though for safekeeping. "I'm going to see what's going on," he says. "Stay here."

For want of anything better to do, Josephine stays. She tries to take in the scene around her, to witness this, too, but there is no point to it; no one approaches her, either. She is no one special, right now; she is another lost soul, pulled up from the wreck. The thought is a comfort. She shuts her eyes and manages a light doze.

"Sister Nightingale's at the center of camp," Krem says, when he returns. Josephine wakes with a start. "Let's go."

She is so tired. There is nothing— _nothing_ —she wants less, right now, than to be the capable one, the calm one, the polite one, the one who must find a way to deal with Leliana and Cullen's self-recrimination. Seeker Pentaghast's tempers, too. Lady Vivienne's cold rage. Solas and Ser Blackwall's endless posturing. Dorian and Sera's whinging.

"No," Josephine says, and stays firmly on her barrel.

"You're the only one unaccounted for, Ambassador."

The only one of the inner circle, he means. There rest of the dead will take time to count. Her death would not be more meaningful than any of theirs. Josephine shakes her head. "Not yet. Not until I've composed myself. Let them think me missing for a moment longer."

They will think her dead. It is selfish, but no more selfish than any of _them,_ and their ceaseless demands of her. She cannot imagine what Krem must think, but he takes her hand and leads her to a cluster of tents. He kicks them, one after another, until one does not yield a startled, angry noise, and ducks into it, pulling her behind him. It is not even tall enough for him to stand up straight in, its only furnishing, a dirty cot, which creaks when Josephine sits on it, and sags dangerously when Krem joins her.

She now knows exactly which Josephine she would have been, in the future: the Josephine who fled. Or the Josephine who died.

"You all right, my lady?" Krem asks.

"No," she says. "No. I'm a deserter, too." She wrestles off her boots, her peels her wet stockings from her feet. Everything feels clammy.

Krem begins, "It's not deserting if you need need a second to—"

"Broadly speaking. I'm sure you know one when you see one," she interrupts him. She hears her words as though from a great distance, rubs her hands on her thighs. There is a restlessness in her. Her skin feels wrong. Her palms, against the fabric of her skirts—wrong. "I had a good career," she goes on, "playing little games with Orlais, securing trade concessions. I ran from that. My mother wants me to make a respectable match, and I ran from _that_ —I even could have gotten away with an eccentric marriage, so long as it united our house with another, even wealthier one."

His hands cover hers, stilling her motion. They are marvelously hot, like live coals, one of the Maker's own miracles. Still, she has made the moment awkward—he works for her. He is the last person she had ought to be telling her personal business to. "You're here now," he says, plainly. "'Eccentric marriage?"

"I think the term my young altus used"—for the first time in hours, Josephine spares a thought for her aide, who is surely in good hands right now, and telling all of those good hands that Josephine is alive and well—"was 'Vyrantian discourse.'"

"Oh, that." Krem looks mortified. Their only illumination is a distant fire outside the tent wall, but if she put the back of her hand to his face, he would be blushing. She's sure of it. "That's just for when two men, uh, clash swords. Together. At the same time. You know, all-men's Circle in Vyrantium, it's... famous. For that kind of thing. The discourse."

"Ah," Josephine says, eyes fixed firmly on the ground. More than she wished to know about Tevinter's hopelessly backward attitudes toward _sword clashing_. "My mistake."

"Right," Krem says, and clears his throat. "You were saying, my lady."

"I've lost the thread," Josephine says, though she hasn't, in truth. A dead boy at the bottom of the stairs. Mother's list of eligibles. There is nowhere that needs her so much that it won't survive her leaving.

His hands tighten on hers, then release them. "Sounds like self-pity, if you don't mind my saying, my lady."

"I'll remind you that Thedas's only hope is buried under a mountain," Josephine snaps, as she tries halfheartedly to rub warmth back into her toes. "You'll forgive me if I'm a bit upset." It's not like her. None of this is like her. Where Leliana is, at least, there will be a fire, and something hot to drink.

Not yet. She isn't calm yet.

Krem says nothing, only gestures to her feet, and she swings them up the side of the cot to put them in his lap, massaging the warmth back into her pallid skin.

"You knocked us on our asses," he murmurs. "Me and the Chief both."

She falls back on the cot and covers her eyes with her forearm. "You should get back to him—"

"We weren't expecting you," he goes on. "He always puts a few inconsistencies on our expense sheets, to make sure people are paying attention—you'd been over everything. Every mistake, even the ones that were just mistakes on my part. Then you talked us down to half price."

"I thought it was two-thirds," she says.

"Yeah. We, uh, let you think that," says Krem.

She doesn't glance up, but she knows his sheepish look well enough. Her toes sting, of all things. Krem's hands move up to hold her ankles, stay there, and his touch is light.

"Keep going," Josephine murmurs. " _Let_ me?"

"Somebody told us"—a firm pressure on her ankles—"you got smug when you won."

"That would be Seeker Pentaghast. She didn't much like me, then."

"Can't imagine why."

Strong, rough hands, stronger and rougher than she could have imagined—perhaps when he was a tailor they might have been soft—folding up her filthy skirts to expose her calves to the cold air, and massage the tightness out of them, too. His fingers brush the backs of her knees, and Josephine starts, hears herself let out a high and breathy laugh.

The sound startles her. There is no call for laughter. Josephine pushes herself up onto one elbow to see Krem staring fixedly up at her, his hair mussed, his lips parted. A violent heat goes through her, tugging like a fish-hook in her gut. Here is a man who hacked his way through monsters to save her, who shook sense into her with his own hands, where another might not have dared. Whose hands, now, tighten on her knees. He still wants her, even like this, she thinks, meeting his eyes with a triumphant little thrill. It is always a shock when someone wants _her,_ the woman, and not her power. Krem looks up at her like water in a desert. He gives her knees a gentle nudge, questioning.

Lady Josephine Cherette Montilyet of Antiva City is a dead woman. The Herald of Andraste is gone, and with her, all hope of defeating Corypheus. Their world is over. Anything might happen, here, in this tent, without consequences.

And still, she finds herself saying, "Your captain must be worried about you."

"Dalish and Skinner'll let him know I'm somewhere around here."

"With me, you mean."

He bends over to kiss the inside of her knee. She strokes the clean-shaven part of his scalp and shivers, from the cold and his lips both. "He won't say a word," he says. "You sure about this?"

No. She is not. She has no leverage with which to guarantee his discretion. The Antivan national character is known to be licentious, to the point of absurdity, and she has not come so far as she has by confirming people's assumptions about her—that, as a dramatic Antivan, easily moved by her passions, she might throw away all her work at molding her image to lie with a Tevinter mercenary in a disgusting tent.

But none of it matters now. They are two people who enjoy one another's company, who, perhaps, recognize something of themselves in one another, and whose acquaintance has reached its logical conclusion.

"Yes," Josephine says, drawing him up with a hand in one of his belts. Krem is still armored. His problem, not hers. She is being _selfish_. For once, someone will give, and give, and give, to _her_.

She wants this to be swift, to make her forget, if only for a moment. But Krem draws back enough to removes his breastplate and vambraces, then eases himself alongside her, shielding her from the thready breeze coming through a tear in the tent wall.

He considers her face, at length. He has three faint moles on his chin, and a scar on his eyebrow; she'd never noticed them before. She presses a kiss to the latter. His skin tastes of ash. He lets out a breath against her cheek and relaxes. His hands hold either side of Josephine's face, holding her fast, as though she might run away. His lips, chapped and rough from the cold, find the lobe of her ear, the bridge of her great beak of a nose, before he puts his mouth to hers.

_You deserve this,_ she thinks, her hands fluttering to his upper arms, feeling the muscles there flex as he levers himself atop her. He kisses her, and she makes no play at coyness, resistance, she opens to him immediately, spreads her legs so that he can settle himself in-between her thighs.

No corpses in the snow. No avalanche. No world-devouring rifts in the Fade. Just a skilled tongue sweeping her mouth, Krem's hand in her skirts, dragging them up only far enough to insinuate his fingers between her legs. She gasps into his kiss, and he pauses.

"Been a while, huh?" Krem says, his voice thick.

Not so long as he might think. He rests his cheek against hers, nuzzles it. Josephine arches upward, trying to find some friction, to assuage the aching tightness in her; his hand navigates her underclothes and finds her bare, damp flesh. Soaked—yes—the realization—no, it does not take much, her arousal is not subject to complicated conditions—passes over his face, chased by a simple, boyish delight. He kisses over her chin, down her throat, to suck at her neck. Juvenile, to want him to leave a mark there. Surely he's bedded down with enough nobles to know better. She threads her hands through his hair and holds his head there, nonetheless.

This is how she would have wanted it, at the wedding, if she'd been foolish enough to give in. Swift and furtive. Against a wall, like Skinner and Dalish, or else in the room she'd shared with Cassandra and Cullen, if they'd been gone for the evening. In her office, or in the war room, if they weren't. All of it rubble, now.

The thought sobers her for a moment. But only a moment. She must have had a good reason to refuse him: it must not have been very compelling, if she can't remember it. Krem licks up to the spot below her ear, his breath heavy on her skin, as his fingers slide obscenely between her folds. Two inside of her, and she releases his hair in pleased surprise, her hips stilling as he eases them in, says something indistinct, to himself, prayer-like. Then three, his thumb pressed firmly to her clit. She moves against him, but it isn't enough.

"Use your mouth," Josephine murmurs, under the sound of boots passing outside their tent.

He stops. He exhales slowly against the side of her neck. Josephine swallows hard, waiting.

"Not like this," he says, drawing deliberately away from her. The cold is a shock to her legs. He looks stricken, before he turns away to pick his breastplate up off the ground. "You're upset, you're... come find me when this is over, if you still want it."

If Josephine still wants _it_. Not if she still wants _him_. She blinks hard, just once. Breathes out. Painstakingly, she sits up. Her back aches from the walking; being horizontal has not helped, much. And he's right, of course. This isn't her. But the temptation is there: to give in to the heat still racing through her, to ignore his protest and pull him back on top of her anyway.

Krem flinches when she reaches for him, but it's only to help him with the clasps on his armor. He pulls her skirts down to her ankles, eyes averted.

"We'll need to find Sister Leliana," she says, smoothing her hair back from her face. She presses the backs of her hands into her burning cheeks. She'll cool off soon enough—and tomorrow, this will be forgotten. Tomorrow, they will need to figure out what they're doing with the rest of their lives, which will assuredly be short and unpleasant. "She'll be going mad with worry. You said she was at the center of camp?"

"Yeah," he says, fumbling with his vambraces.

"Take me there," Josephine says. She meets his eyes full on, and what she sees there is... guilt, and a curious anger, which is refreshing. All of this can be dealt with later. She has had her moment of madness, she is _perfectly calm_ , and now she must go to be a professional. To do her job. "Give the Iron Bull my regards," she adds, "for his company's generous aid. I'll see that you're all rewarded, once we're safe. "

"Right." Krem stands up from the cot, and he does not offer her his hand. "Right away, my lady."

* * *

There is one main fire, as the emergency plans discussed. Leliana stands before it, alone, although her scouts rush around her. Her hands are clasped behind her stiff, straight back, and she stares into the flames, her dainty profile in silhouette. Very theatrical. Very brooding. A passing soldier recognizes Josephine, whispers to the woman next to her, and a wave of muttering spread through the encampment.

"Sister Nightingale," Josephine says, taking up a place next to her. "I was detained."

Finally, Leliana turns. Her face is bleaker than it has been since the Conclave. But she is whole and unscathed, but for a bit of ash on her cheek. For that, Josephine can praise their absent Maker. "Josie," Leliana says, "where _have_ you been?"

Rather than sweep Josephine into an embrace, Leliana falls to her knees in the mud and the snow, to wrap her arms about Josephine's waist. Unexpected—Josephine tenses—calculated for drama, surely, but the trembling that wracks Leliana's body, the single sob Josephine feels against her torso, is not. Josephine plucks her hood back, strokes her hair.

"It was unavoidable," she replies, for the sake of the people watching them. The moment needs to be perfect. She must be a beacon, a guiding hand, a poor replacement for the Herald they've lost; certainly not a woman who would bed down with someone because she was in despair, and needed to feel strong. "It was... dreadful. Dreadful."

Only now, cradling Leliana's head in her hands, does she feel the tears well up in her eyes. "If you had died," Leliana says, her voice muffled by Josephine's belly. "If you… I can't lose you, too. If I had lost you—" 

None of _that_. None of, _I would have slid further into the darkness_ , or _I would have no one good and pure left in my life._ "You would have gone on," Josephine says, and presses Leliana's face further into her body, to keep her quiet as much as to comfort.

They part, gradually, reluctantly. Josephine wipes her eyes off on the back of her sleeve: the handkerchief is long gone. Leliana does not even have the courtesy to have puffy eyes from crying.

Then, the briefing.

Their planned escape route, eastward from Haven to the shores of Lake Calenhad, is cut off; they are somewhere to the northwest, deep in the Frostbacks. Minimal casualties, but also minimal time to pack their bags, as it were. No sign of Corypheus, his dragon, or the Red Templars and their monsters. Cassandra and Cullen are out retracing their steps, searching the mountainside for Adaar. Futile, Leliana says, but they are a matched pair in that they always must be doing _something_.

"The Iron Bull went with them," she adds, pushing hot water and dried meat on Josephine. "I see you brought his lieutenant back safe and sound."

"Lieutenant Aclassi has been a credit to his company, and to the Inquisition," Josephine says. Perfectly casual. Perfectly remote. Face blank as a mask. Nothing to suggest what happened— _almost_ happened—in a tent not a hundred feet from where she sits now. It may as well be a hundred years. She is calm, now, she reminds herself. Before Leliana can so much as raise a speculative eyebrow, Josephine goes on, "Adaar will have nothing to do with the Bull, and he goes out into the snow for her?"

A cry comes up from the edge of camp: Cassandra's booming voice, shouting for a pair of stretchers, for a healer, for everyone to get out of her way. "Ah, they do find people," Leliana says, looking pointedly at the horrible shoe leather sitting uneaten in Josephine's hand. Josephine takes a dutiful bite. "Occasionally. Half-dead, more often than not. Let's greet them; Cassandra needs a piece of good news today, and you'll do."

"I have never felt more adequate in my life," Josephine says, and follows her. She needs a day's worth of sleep—perhaps more—but that will be long in coming.

They break through to the front of the crowd in time to see Cullen and Cassandra supporting a limping scout between them, then handing her off to one of the healers who has come. They catch sight of Josephine, and it is Cullen who rushes forward and sweeps her up in a crushing embrace, pressing her cheek to his freezing breastplate. No pretty words, just a grateful, shaky sigh. When he pulls back from her, his face is flaming red. Josephine gives his cheek a gentle pat.

Beside them, Leliana and Cassandra are conferring in furious whispers. At end of the search party, the Iron Bull's horns crest the hillside. Someone, it seems, has tacked a pair of mauve quilts together for him as a coat, and it is ridiculous, or would be, if not for—

A grey arm flops out of the enormous pile of blankets he carries, and on its hand is a faint, flickering green glow.

"Oh, hey, everybody," the Bull says, glancing around. "Good to see you all, too. You'll neverguess what we found out there."

* * *

And so they are saved.

Solas calls the fortress Skyhold. It is large enough to hold what remains of the Inquisition; crumbling, but defensible (or so Cullen and Cassandra say, nodding together over a floor plan); and, to Josephine's dismay, so utterly remote from any established trade routes that it will be the work of months to establish reliable shipments of supplies.

"You should come with me to Val Royeaux," Adaar says. "This shithole"—she gestures at the pile of debris that will one day be Josephine's office, at the two planks of wood she's using as a desk—"is no place for a lady like you."

"A lady like me?" Josephine asks, mildly, tucking her hands into her sleeves. The winter became bitter almost immediately after they arrived. In response, the fire in Josephine's grate springs up to a full blaze, flooding the room with more heat than can be accounted for by the pitiful amount of wood that can be spared for her. It is... sweet of Adaar, to spend her mana so.

"Nice. Gentle," Adaar says. "You know. All that. I'm taking Cass, Bull, and Sera with me. You like Cass, right?"

"Seeker Pentaghast and I work very effectively together," she replies. She does not like Cassandra, not overmuch. Especially not now that they are all hungry, snappish, cold, and exhausted, and Cassandra cannot phrase her sentences as anything but orders. But they have made their peace, for the _little Antivan pet_ comment.

"See, it'll be fun. Bull likes you. Sera—she probably likes you—shit, everybody likes you."

"You're taking the Iron Bull with you?"

"He dragged my ass up a mountain," Adaar says, with a shallow shrug. "So I bought him a drink. He's not all bad, for a qunari. You should come down to the tavern with us, some time."

The Herald has paid her a number of compliments, recently—more than recently, through the entirety of their acquaintance—and while she is rugged and well-muscled, and could lift Josephine in one hand, Josephine cannot acknowledge them. Not now, or ever. When next she takes a lover, she will take one of her own station, and not an inch above or below it; _la splendeur des coeurs perdus_ seems less charming and Orlesian when one has already had a valued subordinate's hand up one's skirt, and their tongue down one's throat. When one thinks fondly on it, around the shame, alone in one's narrow bed at night.

But it tempts her, certainly: a week on the road with a woman who wants her, who will soon outrank her, and then Orlais. Civilization. Hot baths. Her old rooms at the embassy, with its cool white columns and its mosaic of Queen Asha—and pillows, and chocolate; plying her own connections, rather than entrusting them to her woman in the city. And she will need to go to Val Royeaux eventually for a new wardrobe, once her letter of credit finds its way from Antiva City.

"My place is here," Josephine says. Staying, suffering with the rest of the Inquisition, will be seen as brave and noble by their people and their allies alike. She hands a packet of letters to Adaar. "Deliver my instructions to the Lady de Morreau. She has full power to negotiate on the Inquisition's behalf. Tell her to be merciless." And, before Adaar can make another attempt at convincing her, she adds, "They'll name you Inquisitor when you return, you know."

"Of course they will," Adaar snorts. She cracks each of her marked hand's knuckles in turn as she speaks. "I've been making your decisions for you for months now. What's some ceremony going to change?"

Very little, to be sure. The Inquisition has already knelt before Adaar. All that remains is to give her a throne to sit on.

They have few supplies but what they've brought with them, and what Cullen's soldiers and Leliana's scouts can find in the mountains. Josephine goes about in trousers and a tunic, scarves to her ears, a heavy woolen cap, and only the pair of golden earrings she'd taken off and put in her pocket, the day of the attack, to remind herself that she is ambassador, and not a common carpenter: no one is exempt from the work crews. Josephine herself has seen to _that_.

Some, like Leliana and Cassandra, who have never held a hammer in their lives, are quietly shuffled off to duties where they can do less damage. For others, there is debris to shift, rubble to be cleared. Endless opportunities for a connoisseur of disaster, like Cullen. And Josephine, who spent her summers as a shipbuilder's apprentice, the better to understand the family business, is in the highest demand of all.

Erecting shacks in the dead of winter, where every stray breeze burns the inside of her nostrils, is a far, far cry from Antiva City. The salt breezes, the sudden, fierce rains that forced them all to scrabble to cover the boats, lest the untreated wood warp. Preparing for her university entrance exams, while the other workers take their siesta. _Little Scholar!_ they'd called her, ignorant of her real name.

A relief, to be valued for something other than her ability to manipulate nobles into giving up their coin. Josephine goes out gladly, in-between writing letters to anyone who has been even slightly sympathetic to the Inquisition's cause: We are alive. We have seen our enemy's face. We are rebuilding. We need-food, seed, clothing, weapons. Money. Armorers. Masons to assess the extent of repairs needed to make Skyhold functional, never mind defensible. They hardly know where they are in the mountains, let alone what lays beneath their feet, in the labyrinth of caverns and tunnels. Messenger after messenger, and then the wait.

She has kept track of Krem, in all this.

The Chargers, of course, are awarded the highest honor the Inquisition can give to its people, with as much pomp as can be mustered among fallen rafters and broken glass. The Iron Bull recovered the Inquisitor, and Lieutenant Aclassi recovered the ambassador; without them, there would be no Inquisition. Josephine does not attend the makeshift ceremony. There are titters, about the handsome 'Vint in the sewing circle, helping to piece together winter clothing out of the heaps of moldering linens and woolens left behind by Skyhold's former inhabitants. So polite, they say. Such fine, elegant stitches, they say—such hands.

Such _hands_. If only they knew.

It must be as mortifying for him as it is for her. She is his employer. They have a contract, the Chargers and the Inquisition, and Lady Josephine Montilyet is the first signatory. When the Chargers were caught in Cullen and Leliana's spat, it was bad enough: they cannot afford another breach of trust.

You come find me when this is over, if you still want it, Krem had said, when they'd parted. Impossible. She has been dealing exclusively with the Iron Bull himself, where he had once been content to let Krem handle all his affairs of business. The Bull has never brought up the timing of Krem's arrival at the encampment and Josephine's reappearance, but she sees his speculative looks.

Never mind _wanting_ it. Josephine needs to _fix_ it.

* * *

Leliana, by virtue of rank and reputation, is nominally the seneschal of the Inquisition, but she has sequestered herself in Skyhold's draftiest tower, the better to ignore Josephine's speeches about how not every ill that befalls them is her fault. And so Josephine has near-complete control over the running of their day-to-day affairs; and so it is nothing, to arrange for the sewing circle to meet in the Great Hall, directly outside of what will one day be Josephine's beautiful, impressive office. Nothing, too, to have nearly everyone called away on errands before the end of the session.

It works. Too well. When she opens the door to her office, there is no one in the vast, ruined hall but Krem. He is unperturbed by it, so far as she can tell. As he puts the finishing touches on a skirt's hem, she clears her throat. Krem ignores her in favor of breaking off the thread with his teeth, which, so far as Josephine understands the rudiments of sewing anything more complicated than a bit of sailcloth, is thoroughly unnecessary. His hair is shaggy and mussed. He's wearing the same breastplate he wore the night he rescued her, under a greatcoat.

"Lieutenant Aclassi," Josephine says. Her voice echoes more than she would like it to, in the hall. Once they have a budget for decorations, tapestries will be her first order of business.

He glances up at her-but not around him. "Ambassador Montilyet," he replies. "Looks like we're—"

"By ourselves, yes. A word, Lieutenant, if you would."

Without question, Krem sets aside the mass of fabric he's working on, and rises: slowly, as though something pains him. More for Josephine to apologize for. She closes the door behind him and leans against it, eyeing him, cautiously, as he looks around. There is a hole in the floor, covered over with planks.

"Lot of effort to go to just to get me alone," he says, with a crooked smile.

"You misunderstand me," says Josephine. "I only brought you here to... apologize, for my conduct, after you rescued me."

If she had grown a dragon's mouth and spat fire from her throat, he could have looked at her more strangely. " _You,"_ Krem says, "want to apologize to _me_. For _your_ conduct."

"Of course I do." Josephine can only imagine how rare it must be, for an employer to say they're sorry for how poorly they've used their hirelings. She walks around him to stand before the fire, arms behind her back. "You've been having the Iron Bull deal with me since we arrived, you clearly want nothing to do with me, which will be untenable, in the long run, if we're to work effectively together—"

"You'd almost just died, my lady," Krem says.

That he feels obligated to make excuses for her... "Yes," she says. "I had. Nevertheless, I took advantage of you—"

" _You_ took advantage of _me_ —"

"—and your generosity in comforting me after an ordeal," Josephine finishes, over him. "This is not how I conduct my business. The Chargers contracted to service the Inquisition's needs, not to... service its needs. I put you in a position where you could not possibly have felt comfortable saying no to me, and the blame is mine."

Krem advances on her. She squares her shoulders. People who are taller than her—Leliana, the Herald, nearly everyone, even Cullen—think they can intimidate her by looming, and they are wrong. His hands settle on her shoulders, his fingertips grazing the side of her neck. It is unwise of her, to not draw back or protest. To remind him that she could grind him to dust, if he takes liberties with her.

She says no such thing. That her body is one enormous pulse, as he slides his hands up to her face, to cradle it, brush her loose hair from her face, speaks to how long it has been since someone touched her with more affection than Leliana's absent-minded kisses to the cheek, or Cullen's excited shoulder-clasps.

"With all due respect, my lady," he says. "Shut up for a second."

Josephine's mouth shuts. She cannot remember the last time someone told her to shut up.

"Lady Montilyet," Krem says, slowly and carefully, "you'd almost died. You weren't thinking clearly. I shouldn't have laid a finger on you. I shouldn't be laying a finger on you _now_. "

"I have never thought so clearly in my life!" Josephine snaps, before she can think better of it. Her body remembers the weight of his hand between her legs, however. It remembers the weight of his body on hers. So close, she can see that his lips are chapped from the cold; his nose is windburned. The bruises on his face are healing nicely. She'd kissed each of his scrapes, gotten in her defense, that night. But she rallies her mind to the task at hand: if she is merciful here, all her efforts will be wasted. "I knew exactly what I was doing, and that is the problem," she says. "You don't know me, Lieutenant; you know your idea of me. And I don't know you."

The blow lands. She sees the moment he crumples. Easy to forget, when she sees him swinging a sword, that he's younger than her, if only by a few years. She has broken hearts by the fistful, but never in such close proximity. Never someone who saved her life, and asks for nothing in return.

"So what's your idea of me?" Krem asks, staring into the fire, in his turn.

Regardless, she does not owe him an explanation. She does not owe him _anything_.

"You're a Tevinter," Josephine says, despite it. "A mercenary."

"And?"

"A deserter, whose parents don't know if he's alive or dead. A man who loves them enough to regret it, and is worries what they'll have to say about him running from a good apprenticeship and a marriage." Now the corners of Krem's lips turn up into a half smile—yes, yes, Josephine has done precisely the same thing in joining the Inquisition, the irony doesn't escape her.

Her own parents married for business—Maman had the ships, Papa had a noble name, and the gift for talking rich idiots out of money—and not pleasure, but found the latter nonetheless; Josephine has always expected the same for herself. A few grand romances in Orlais, and then, her family's trading rights restored, she'd do the expected thing and settle down in Antiva with someone as rich as her, to watch their money grow.

Krem's marriage would not have been so kind to him.

"Guilty as charged," he says.

"A man with integrity," she concludes, glancing back at the fire. "But this is my idea of you. I hardly know _you_."

Krem holds himself still, long enough to draw Josephine's gaze. He is saluting her, in the Tevinter style, with his fist over his heart and his head bowed.

Identical to their first meeting, but for the set-dressing.

"Pleased to make your acquaintance, my lady, ma'am," he says. "My name is Lieutenant Cremisius Aclassi, lately of Minrathous. Second in command to the Iron Bull, captain of the Bull's Chargers." He glances up at her. "At your pleasure."


End file.
